Editing Indeterminism (section)

==Philosophy<!--'Chance (philosophy)' redirects here-->==
===Ancient Greek philosophy===

====Leucippus====
The oldest mention of the concept of '''chance'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA; 'Chance (philosophy)' redirects here--> is by the earliest philosopher of [[atomism]], [[Leucippus]], who said:
<blockquote>"The cosmos, then, became like a spherical form in this way: the atoms being submitted to a casual and unpredictable movement, quickly and incessantly".<ref>"ὁ τοίνυν κόσμος συνέστη περικεκλασμένῳ σχήματι ἐσχηματισμένος τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον. τῶν ἀτόμων σωμάτων ἀπρονόητον καὶ τυχαίαν ἐχόντων τὴν κίνησιν συνεχῶς τε καὶ τάχιστα κινουμένων" [[Hermann Alexander Diels|H.Diels-W.Kranz]] ''Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker'', Berlin Weidmann 1952, 24, I, 1</ref></blockquote>

====Aristotle====
{{main|Four causes}}
[[Aristotle]] described four possible causes (material, efficient, formal, and final). Aristotle's word for these causes was αἰτίαι (''aitiai'', as in ''[[wikt:aetiology|aetiology]]''), which translates as causes in the sense of the multiple factors responsible for an event. Aristotle did not subscribe to the simplistic "every event has a (single) cause" idea that was to come later.

In his ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]'' and ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'', Aristotle said there were [[Accident (philosophy)|accidents]] (συμβεβηκός, ''[[sumbebekos]]'') caused by nothing but chance (τύχη, ''tukhe''). He noted that he and the early physicists found no place for chance among their causes.

{{quote|We have seen how far Aristotle distances himself from any view which makes chance a crucial factor in the general explanation of things. And he does so on conceptual grounds: chance events are, he thinks, by definition unusual and lacking certain explanatory features: as such they form the complement class to those things which can be given full natural explanations.<ref name="Hankinson">{{cite book |chapter=Causes |title=Blackwell Companion to Aristotle |last=Hankinson |first=R.J. |year=2009 |page=223}}</ref>|R.J. Hankinson |"Causes" in ''Blackwell Companion to Aristotle ''}}

Aristotle opposed his accidental chance to necessity:
<blockquote>
    Nor is there any definite cause for an accident, but only chance (τυχόν), namely an indefinite (ἀόριστον) cause.<ref>Aristotle, ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'', Book V, 1025a25</ref>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
    It is obvious that there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible apart from the actual processes of generation and destruction; for if this is not true, everything will be of necessity: that is, if there must necessarily be some cause, other than accidental, of that which is generated and destroyed. Will this be, or not? Yes, if this happens; otherwise not.<ref>Aristotle, ''[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]'', Book VI, 1027a29-33</ref>
</blockquote>

====Pyrrhonism====
The philosopher [[Sextus Empiricus]] described the [[pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] position on causes as follows:

<blockquote>...we show the existence of causes are plausible, and if those, too, are plausible which prove that it is incorrect to assert the existence of a cause, and if there is no way to give preference to any of these over others – since we have no agreed-upon sign, [[criteria of truth|criterion]], or proof, as has been pointed out earlier – then, if we go by the statements of the [[Dogma]]tists, it is necessary to [[epoche|suspend judgment]] about the existence of causes, too, saying that they are no more existent than non-existent<ref>[[Sextus Empiricus]] ''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'' Book III Chapter 5</ref></blockquote>

====Epicureanism====
[[Epicurus]] argued that as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" (''[[clinamen]]'') from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. Epicurus argued that these swerves would allow us to be more responsible for our actions, something impossible if every action was deterministically caused. For [[Epicureanism]], the occasional interventions of arbitrary gods would be preferable to strict determinism.

===Early modern philosophy===
In 1729 the<small> </small>''Testament'' of [[Jean Meslier]] states:

<blockquote>"The matter, by virtue of its own active force, moves and acts in blind manner".<ref>Meslier, J. ''The Testament''.</ref> </blockquote>

Soon after [[Julien Offroy de la Mettrie]] in his ''L'Homme Machine.'' (1748, anon.) wrote:

<blockquote>"Perhaps, the cause of man's existence is just in existence itself? Perhaps he is by chance thrown in some point of this terrestrial surface without any ''how'' and ''why''". </blockquote>

In his ''Anti-Sénèque'' [''Traité de la vie heureuse, par Sénèque, avec un Discours du traducteur sur le même sujet'', 1750] we read:

<blockquote>"Then, the chance has thrown us in life".<ref>Jde La Mettrie, J.O.:''Anti-Sénèque''</ref></blockquote>

In the 19th century the French Philosopher [[Antoine-Augustin Cournot]] theorized ''chance'' in a new way, as series of not-linear causes. He wrote in ''Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances'' (1851):

<blockquote>"It is not because of rarity that the chance is actual. On the contrary, it is because of chance they produce many possible others."<ref>Cournot, A.A: ''Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances et sur les caractères de la critique philosophique'', § 32.</ref> </blockquote>

===Modern philosophy===

====Charles Peirce====
[[Tychism]] ({{langx|el|τύχη}} "chance") is a thesis proposed by the American philosopher [[Charles Sanders Peirce]] in the 1890s.<ref>Peirce, C. S.:  ''The Doctrine of Necessity Examined'', [[The Monist]], 1892
</ref> It holds that absolute [[chance (philosophy)|chance]], also called spontaneity, is a real factor operative in the universe. It may be considered both the direct opposite of [[Albert Einstein]]'s oft quoted dictum that: "[[God does not play dice]] with the universe" and an early philosophical anticipation of [[Werner Heisenberg]]'s [[uncertainty principle]].

Peirce does not, of course, assert that there is ''no'' law in the universe. On the contrary, he maintains that an absolutely chance world would be a contradiction and thus impossible.
Complete lack of order is itself a sort of order. The position he advocates is rather that there are in the universe both regularities and irregularities.

[[Karl Popper]] comments<ref>Popper, K: ''Of Clouds and Cuckoos'', included in ''Objective Knowledge'', revised, 1978, p231.</ref> that Peirce's theory received little contemporary attention, and that other philosophers did not adopt indeterminism until the rise of quantum mechanics.

====Arthur Holly Compton====
In 1931, [[Arthur Holly Compton]] championed the idea of human freedom based on [[quantum indeterminacy]] and invented the notion of amplification of microscopic quantum events to bring [[Randomness|chance]] into the macroscopic world. In his somewhat bizarre mechanism, he imagined sticks of dynamite attached to his amplifier, anticipating the [[Schrödinger's cat]] paradox.<ref>SCIENCE, 74, p. 1911, August 14, 1931.</ref>

Reacting to criticisms that his ideas made chance the direct cause of our actions, Compton clarified the two-stage nature of his idea in an ''Atlantic Monthly'' article in 1955. First there is a range of random possible events, then one adds a determining factor in the act of [[choice]].

<blockquote>A set of known physical conditions is not adequate to specify precisely what a forthcoming event will be. These conditions, insofar as they can be known, define instead a range of possible events from among which some particular event will occur. When one exercises freedom, by his act of choice he is himself adding a factor not supplied by the physical conditions and is thus himself determining what will occur. That he does so is known only to the person himself. From the outside one can see in his act only the working of physical law. It is the inner knowledge that he is in fact doing what he intends to do that tells the actor himself that he is free.<ref>"Science and Man’s Freedom", in ''The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton'', 1967, Knopf, p. 115</ref>
</blockquote>

Compton welcomed the rise of indeterminism in 20th century science, writing:

<blockquote>
In my own thinking on this vital subject I am in a much more satisfied state of mind than I could have been at any earlier stage of science. If the statements of the laws of physics were assumed correct, one would have had to suppose (as did most philosophers) that the feeling of freedom is illusory, or if [free] choice were considered effective, that the laws of physics ... [were] unreliable. The dilemma has been an uncomfortable one.<ref>Commpton, A.H. ''The Human Meaning of Science'' p. ix</ref>
</blockquote>Together with Arthur Eddington in Britain, Compton was one of those rare distinguished physicists in the English speaking world of the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s arguing for the “liberation of free will” with the help of Heisenberg’s  indeterminacy principle, but their efforts had been met not only with physical and philosophical criticism but most primarily with fierce political and ideological campaigns.<ref>{{Citation|last=Kožnjak|first=Boris|title=The Earliest Missionaries of 'Quantum Free Will': A Socio-Historical Analysis|volume=6|date=2018|work=Free Will & Action|pages=131–154|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-99295-2_10|isbn=9783319992945|series=Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action}}</ref>

====Karl Popper====
In his essay ''Of Clouds and Clocks'', included in his book ''Objective Knowledge'', [[Karl Popper|Popper]]
contrasted "clouds", his metaphor for indeterministic systems, with "clocks", meaning deterministic ones.
He sided with indeterminism, writing
<blockquote>
I believe Peirce was right in holding that all clocks are clouds to some considerable degree — even the most precise of clocks. This, I think, is the most important inversion of the mistaken determinist view that all clouds are clocks<ref>Popper, K: ''Of Clouds and Cuckoos'', included in ''Objective Knowledge'', revised, 1978, p215.</ref>
</blockquote>

Popper was also a promoter of [[propensity probability]].

====Robert Kane====
Kane is one of the leading contemporary philosophers on [[free will]].<ref name = "KaneFreeWill">Kane, R. (ed.) ''Oxford Handbook of Free Will''</ref><ref>[http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/kane/ Information Philosophers] "Robert Kane is the acknowledged dean of the libertarian philosophers writing actively on the free will problem."</ref>  Advocating what is termed within philosophical circles "[[Libertarianism (metaphysics)|libertarian]] freedom", Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities (it precludes the power to do otherwise)".<ref>Kane (ed.): ''Oxford Handbook of Free Will'', p. 11.</ref>  It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR).  Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will.  It is necessary that there be ([[Metaphysics|metaphysically]]) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control.  The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".

What allows for ultimate responsibility of creation in Kane's picture are what he refers to as "self-forming actions" or SFAs — those moments of indecision during which people experience conflicting wills.  These SFAs are the undetermined, regress-stopping voluntary actions or refrainings in the life histories of agents that are required for UR.  UR does not require that ''every'' act done of our own free will be undetermined and thus that, for every act or choice, we could have done otherwise; it requires only that certain of our choices and actions be undetermined (and thus that we could have done otherwise), namely SFAs.  These form our character or nature; they inform our future choices, reasons and motivations in action.  If a person has had the opportunity to make a character-forming decision (SFA), he is responsible for the actions that are a result of his character.

====Mark Balaguer====
[[Mark Balaguer]], in his book ''Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem''<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=19727 |title=Notre Dame Reviews: ''Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem'' |access-date=2011-07-26 |archive-date=2010-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527203918/http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=19727 |url-status=dead }}</ref> argues similarly to Kane. He believes that, conceptually,  free will requires indeterminism, and the question of whether the brain behaves indeterministically is open to further [[empirical]] research. He has also written on this matter "A Scientifically Reputable Version of Indeterministic Libertarian Free Will".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://turingc.blogspot.pt/2012/07/mark-balaguer-scientifically-reputable.html|title=Mark Balaguer: A Scientifically Reputable Version of Indeterministic Libertarian Free Will|website=turingc.blogspot.pt|date=2012-07-06}}</ref>